https://youtu.be/KAUak7Xneh0

Done differently, very little. Ours was DIY and completed over several winters.

Best advice I can offer is to make a scale layout of your space. Identify all of the “fixed” items like pumps, posts and furnace. Then design your finished space by placing tape onto the floor. That way you can “live” the finished area. install plenty of lights on dimmers. Good luck.

We recently finished ours. At this point I would not have changed anything. I am still trying to find a cool backsplash for our “bar area”. We are still furnishing it as well.

Quick recommendations:

• Full bath is great. Nicest bathroom in our house!
• 55” TV in bar area, 82” TV in main area. 65” TV for Xbox/etc.
• In wall/ceiling speakers.
• Get all wiring planned! And outlets! Ethernet, coax, speaker, HDMI, extra network cable for expansion.
• Run PVC in ceiling for future wiring.
• We put our cable modem, router etc in the electrical box closet. Hides equipment nicely.
• AV equipment is all in “furnace room”/ closet rather than by TV. With additional router etc. Cables all in ceiling. Use PVC to run cables. Love this setup.
• Theater seating. Octane. Love it.
• Full counter depth frig, combination microwave, dishwasher, 27” sink, disposal... love it all.
• lots of recessed LED. 4” cans. Selective lumens.
• smart switches. Wemo.
• LVT
• hardwood stairs and nice railing.
• New windows, sump pump and backup and ejector. Water sensors and smart water shutoff valve.
• Electric fireplace w/ mantel.
• Had cracks injected with water prevention material.... name escapes me.
• XPS foam board insulation on concrete walls then Rockwool in studs. This was an upgrade. We also used sound insulation in ceilings.

I think that’s it!

I would recommend waterproof flooring. Gravity always wins and sooner or later you will have a water incident from a failed water heater, leaking pipe, failed sump pump, foundation seepage, etc. Also think about your ceiling, i.e will you need to access ductwork, plumbing, electrical, subfloor, etc. at some point in the future. Good luck with your project!

Work your plan around the supporting posts, heat ducts, plumbing anything already in place. moving those can cost a lot of money. Plan for egress windows in any room you want to use as a bedroom because it is required and will help resale value if you do sell, along with the added safety. Check the measurement requirements of your city for those as they can be different depending where you are. A bath with at least a shower helps even if the space will mainly be for guests. We didn't have air conditioning so moved to a basement bedroom in the summer using our master for guests then and the basement bedroom for guests in the winter. It was nice having totally separate privacy. Decide before you start a floor plan what size you want the rooms to be. For me I want a bedroom that is about 12x12 to be comfortable.

We should have checked for radon and installed a mitigation system, if indicated. See here for radon concentrations. (Zone 1 is the highest concentration.)

If you are located in a wet climate, check the water table to make sure it won't be cost prohibitive to drill into the ground and rough in plumbing.

We also just had our basement finished (still moving things down there) and are thrilled with the end result. You've already gotten some great advice, but I'll echo some of the things that worked for us.

We set up furniture (and mocked up other elements) as we planned to use it in our finished basement, and that helped make decisions on layout. Spaces are often bigger in my imagination than they are in real life ;) We also put tape on the floor to indicated walls and doorways (make sure you account for the thickness of the walls) and lived with that for almost a year while planning finishing details. I gathered a lot of inspiration pictures and did lots of research so we had a detailed idea of what we wanted before we got to the point of interviewing contracting companies. We found contractors who really understood our vision and could bring it to life, and that helped immensely when the inevitable unexpected issues came up. We were also flexible with our timeline when there were minor hiccups (such as sourcing materials), so the process took longer than originally planned but it was well worth the wait.

Good luck with your project!

To add to comments by others about moisture issues, yes, make sure you have addressed any water entry problems first. Next, when you insulate the foundation walls, do not insulate with fiberglass batts inside a frame. That's too likely to lead to a musty smelling basement. Use rigid foam board fastened or glued to the concrete, 2-3" thick, depending on your climate zone. Cover that with 2x4s flat side out, add whatever wiring for outlets you want in shallow electrical boxes, and cover that with sheetrock. There is plenty of information on this on such sites as GreenbuildingAdvisor.com.

following...

I updated my post with a couple more items to cover insulation and filing cracks. Basically we did what was “necessary“ to prevent water issues. We did use foam board and Rockwool .. actually I forgot we did spray foam for all above-ground areas as we have an English basement.... 3 double-wide windows above-ground.... all replaced.... as was the egress window.

We finished our basement in fall 2018 so have been living with it for over a year. I'm happy for the most part but of course there are a few things I would have done differently.

We had a full bathroom, complete with a tub/shower combo installed. Because we used the bump out from the kitchen above, the bathroom wound up being a lot bigger than we originally planned. I should have covered up the bumpout to have more room in the tv area as the bathroom is right next to it.

My husband was the one that insisted on having the tub. A shower would have sufficed just fine.

We kept one area unfinished, the area where the furnace and hot water heater are. We have doors to that area and you have to open the one door and reach behind to turn on the light switch. I wish we had put the light switch on the outside of the door instead, before you enter.

We bought a sectional for the tv area because the stairs have a 90 degree turn and it would have been hard to bring a couch down that turn. While the sectional can fit a lot of people, everyone fights for the seats that recline. Part of me wishes we had gotten 3 smaller reclining love seats instead.

Some things I am glad we did:

- full size refrigerator instead of a wine/beverage size one.

- sink in the kitchenette (I originally didn't want one but we do use it all the time)

- large "Costco" sized pantry. We had The Container Store install the Elfa shelving system and it was worth every penny.

- Waterproof and new sump pump + backup before starting any construction

- New windows (they really do let a lot more light in)

- We took pictures of the wiring and plumbing before the drywall was installed so we have a general idea of where things are.

- Separate AV equipment closet. My husband also works from home a lot so the router is in there too.

- We too did a lot of the things seosmp did, like insulation in the ceiling, ceiling speakers.

- Vinyl plank flooring with area rugs

- We debated a lot between having an open, painted ceiling, vs tiles vs drywall. We went with drywall because it looked the "cleanest" and even though we lost a bit of headroom, I'm happy with the result.

I think the other posters above have done a good job of covering the other things we also did. Overall we are really happy with what we did and fortunately I don't have a ton of regrets.

Great advice above to take pictures of wiring/etc. We took video/pictures throughout the project, focusing on plumbing/electrical/etc.

The other thing is that we went with an open floor plan. We have 4 bedrooms + den upstairs, so no need for a 5th bedroom. For sleeping/guests, we bought a single chair sleeper, Euro lounger, and 2 queen Aerobeds for guests - all from Costco (we could not get a larger sleeper down there from what I could tell). We also have big plush/shag area rugs with thick padding. The kids have had several sleepovers already - sometimes just sleeping right on the area rugs with sleeping bags!

We also kept a large area in the back unfinished for storage and all our workout equipment (weights, treadmill, etc.). We put in a double door to this section (glass french door - plan to frost glass - for light) - so that we could get large items in/out easier. Someone could later finish this as a theater room/etc. if they wanted.

The one thing still in the works is that we have a chlorination system and the injection pump clicking is annoying (goes on when water runs). My water guy said there is a quieter one they are now using, and so we plan to do this at some point.

I also have to give a shout-out to Elfa shelving (as mentioned above)! I installed Elfa in all our closets and laundry room upstairs a few years ago, and just installed a section in the unfinished area. I'm now debating doing another wall of it for the workout area (for TV, etc.). The annual 30% sale is going on now! It's expensive but I love the flexibility for future adjustment (vs for example fixed plywood shelving which was our other option).

[We also have Alexa/EchoDot down there to turn on/off lights via voice.]

Also - top-down/bottom-up blinds for windows - room darkening - great for privacy options and darkness for sleepovers!

Here's another piece of advice which is not specific to basements. But be very specific with any detail that is important to you - in pictures, writing. And I mean everything.

I mostly work from home, and the one day I went into the office during this process, I walked through how to install the LVT before I left as I thought it was pretty straightforward -- came back in the afternoon with just under half of the LVT already installed. Turns out they ran it in a pattern - every other row had exactly the same layout/seams. I wanted it installed like hardwood (which we have in the entire rest of the house) - with a random pattern. The instructions indicated that one could use the end of the first row as the starting piece for the next row (w/ minimum overlap required) - but I didn't specifically request he do this (I figured since it's meant to look like hardwood, they would just do it that way). After talking with a designer/friend, she insisted I tell them to re-install it. After some "discussion", they agreed - I told them, please call me downstairs when you start again. Well, he came up a bit later and they had re-installed about 8 rows -- now in a 1' offset step pattern! So every 4th row had the same exact pattern! Ugh.... this is why I told them to call me up. The first few rows were ok, so they removed a few rows and I told them I would pick the starting piece length of each row (seeing if the end of the previous row would work), and then they could lay that row..... and we did that for several rows until it was clear of the goal. My guess is that maybe other folks have it this way and are ok with it, which is totally fine as we all should get what we want/love.... but my bad for making an assumption and not explicitly requesting what I expected.

So it was great that I learned the lesson on that (very easy to remove), and so I then knew to be very specific with every other choice.. like the shower tile layout where changes aren't so easy... and told my boss I could not go in to the office while this was going on! Too risky!

[BTW - we did communicate about everything up until this floor issue and I got what I was looking for, but it just taught me that nothing should be left unspecified.]

These are very helpful. we just started our basement project. I will be taking some picture and videos of the plumbing and wiring.

Hi,

Disclaimer I didn't read all post....was wondering if anyone installed 1/2 or full bath in a basement with no pre exiting bathroom?

@summer time we’re still under construction, but just had a full bath roughed in down there (no bathroom before)

Yes. We also under construction and we are installing a full bath without a pre existing rough in. We are adding an ejector pump.

Unless you are in an area subjected to frequent power outages I suggest two sump pump’s with floatless switches - one can be higher than the other.

The battery back up systems requires you to use a primary pump with vertical switch and therefore cycles much more leading to premature failure.

Don’t forget to caulk all your plates front and back especially areas closer to water sources

We put a full bath in the first house when we finished the basement, and no one ever took a shower there. Did not put a bathroom in the second house basement, and don’t miss it. I regret NOT soundproofing the ceiling, as my son kept us up on multiple occasions when he had friends over and they played video games into the wee hours of the morning.

Make sure the door to the utility area is wide enough to remove wash/dryer and furnace for when they need replacing. We started installing "standard" size door and realized that washer would have a hard time fitting through without removing frame.

Our furnace has a pipe that comes out the backside for condensation from air-conditioning. Why it's in the back I don't know. The backside of furnace would be where bathroom would go, maybe a access panel would need to go since tube gets clogged and occasionally I clean it out. Probably reachable from front, just not without contortions.

Access panel to plumbing in shower/tub so don't have to cut through finished drywall in case we have to access plumbing. Had to do that on main floor bathroom once, now have a panel. Don't forget you will need a fan in bathroom, where to put exhaust vent to outside.

Planning to finish the basement. Following

Hey, Houzzers,

From a basement remodeler who is sadder but wiser, my advice to those who live in wet climates and who are thinking of finishing their basements is: Get to know and understand your home’s water drainage system. I learned by trial and error two drainage issues (and I am sure there is more to learn. I am just a hapless homeowner who is just learning about all this the hard way) so check with your professional for your own drainage situation and needs. Before you even think about doing your basement remodel:

1) Check your gutters and downspouts to make sure they are all using the advantages of gravity and that they are not sagging and that they are connected to drain pipes and draining properly and away from the house.

Much of your home’s roof drainage system is likely unseen and underground. Make sure the ‘daylight’ end of the drain piping (piping that is likely connected to your downspouts underground and which runs out in the yard and that drains by gravity) is in tact and clear of debris. I didn’t even realize we had such drains out in our yard and we paid dearly for our ignorance when the drain pipes were blocked by leaves and soil And by the yard guys collapsing them by running over them with their trucks. We had to have “The Underground Detective” come in and help us find our drain lines—a very helpful guy, btw.

2) Be sure your sump pump system is in order, including a back up pump or battery or generator for storm outages or other failures. Additionally, if you don’t have a sump pump consider if you might want/need one (for our house we need two—one on each end of the basement).

Secondly, find your exit drain pipe for your “footer drains” and/or sump pump (if you have a sump pump). I don’t know much about sump pump drainage because we don’t have one yet (we are getting them installed after 20 years of living here) but I am sure they have an exit drain, either separate or connected to your “footer drain” set up.

These footer drains (which if you, like me, may not realize you have) are situated eight or so feet just underneath your foundation. They have at least one exit drain for overflow water that typically works by gravity or a pump and goes out in to the yard or maybe to your sewer system. This footer drain pipe should be separate from your roof gutter system drain pipes which I wrote about above, so that in the case one exit pipe gets clogged the other is not affected. Depending on the quality of materials used in your footer drains they may have corroded or be on the verge of corroding if your house is older (ours was built in 1991) as ours did.

3). If you are on a septic system, as we are, be sure to get your tanks pumped out regularly if you have tanks. I am sure there are different kinds of septic systems—ours uses tanks. My neighbor has lived in her house for ten years and never had her tanks pumped (ignorance again) and had her basement ruined by a horrible back up. (At least we knew enough to get ours pumped.)

As I said, we are learning the hard way about our home’s drainage system. After twenty years of living here and having not so much as one drop of water come in to our basement, in 2018 during a winter of heavy rain we totally remodeled our basement, and after eight months of work, on the day the contractors were leaving, our basement flooded! We sustained major damage. The cause was poor gutter drain connections and blocked up exit drains for the roof system and footer drains around the house. A very very expensive mistake made out of ignorance. (Sob). Please don’t be ignorant and pay such a price like we are paying—pls inspect your drain systems and understand how they work.

And another thought, please check your home owners insurance policy. We found out ours does not cover water damage such as we sustained. We would had to have had a specific rider attached for water issues, which we did not realize. Our basement and drain repairs are running well in to six figures so additional insurance is something to consider. 🥴. Also, depending on how extensive your basement remodel is, you may want to add additional coverage for fire and other disasters.